Pages

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Here's an easy display for you that works for both physical or online book displays: genre award finalists.

One of the my first adult book displays that I put up was an Edgar Award Nominees display and it went like hotcakes (maybe because my patrons LOVE a mystery). Using award nominees is an easy way to quickly put a list together and come up with titles to refill your display. Using nominees instead of just category winners expands the number of titles you have to choose from, allowing for more flexibility and a greater ability to include books by authors of color, etc.

Not only does using the award nominees give you a pre-chosen list to pull for your display, it's a great way to educate patrons (AND STAFF) about these awards. If they're huge mystery or sci-fi readers, they may already be familiar with these awards, but chances are there are general readers who are not.

Don't limit yourself to just this year's finalists or shortlists. Check previous years and pull back list titles to expand and refill your display.

I've done Edgar Awards and I just put up Nebula Award Finalists for a sci-fi display. Here are other awards with shortlists or finalists that would make great displays:

Monday, March 11, 2019

This year, I took on a project that I have wanted to do for a long time: Firefly Book Award Kits.

The Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award is a kids-choice state book award started in 2015 and aimed at ages 0-5 and featuring books that develop early literacy skills in our youngest readers. Each year, a committee of professionals selects 5 nominees and children 5 and under may vote for their favorite.

We've done some programming around the Firefly Award in the past and set up a voting station in our Children's Room, but this year I really wanted to push it with our local early childhood educators and see if we could get them involved.

I created five Firefly Award kits that each include a copy of each of the five nominees, the 2019 program guide (super useful - it contains ideas on how to share the books, craft ideas, ideas for voting, etc.), and 20 ballot sheets. Each kit checks out for one week and any teacher who checks out a kit and returns children's votes will be entered into a drawing to win a set of all five books.

I set the kits to check out for one week because we're starting a little bit late and I'm trying to get the maximum usage out of them before votes are due on May 15. We'll see how it works - if we repeat the program next year hopefully I will be able to start earlier in the semester so we have more time and we may adjust the checkout period.

For our pilot program, I'm first reaching out to local early childhood teachers because we'll get huge bang for our buck that way. I started last week and all five kits are checked out to teachers. If we start having kits sitting on my shelves, I intend to put them out for any families to check out.

Creating the kits:

I purchased DALIX zippered cotton canvas bags through Amazon for about $13 apiece. I have my eye on heavier-duty canvas totes via Lands End or LL Bean, but for this pilot project I decided to go with cheaper bags. If we like the program and continue it, we'll probably invest in higher quality bags. We will also look at vinyl bags or other options that are not cloth - critters aren't a huge concern to me with bags circulating to schools, but we can never be too careful.

I purchased a set of plastic tag holders that came with zip ties to affix the kit labels with barcodes to the bags. On the back of the label, I printed the contents of the kit. I realized that I needed to attach a second tag with the delivery and pickup information, so if we continue the program in future years I will look for better solutions.

My hope is that we will have success and continue the program and then the bags can be an investment that we reuse each year with the new nominees.

The best deal I could find on the hardcover picture books was through Ingram. I ordered them non-processed and put labels in the front of each book with the kit's barcode. That way if they get separated we know where they go. When we give away the books, we'll put a new label with no barcode over the top of it so teachers can be reminded of their awesome library.

Giving away the books once the program is done was my cataloger's idea. That way we don't take up extra shelf space with multiple copies that we probably no longer need, and it's an extra incentive for teachers to participate in the program.

Program Goals:

My hope is to collect 100 votes via this program this year. Last year we were in the throes of our huge staffing restructure and we submitted 0 votes for our county, so if I can get 100 votes to submit I will be happy and that will give us something to build on. I'll be sure to update and let you know how it goes!

Read on for information about my budget and staff time for this project, as well as files you can use if you want to replicate it at your library!

Program Budget:
5 canvas bags at $13/each = $65*
Set of 50 tag holders with zip ties = $14*
25 hardcover picture books (5 each of the five nominees) at an average discounted price of $13/each = $325
Printing 5 program guides + extra in case any of the teachers keep theirs (which would be fine with me) at 25 cents a page = $100**
Printing ballots to include at each guide (500 ballots printed) at 25 cents each = $125**Total: $629 for five kits
(Or about $400 without including printing costs)
*These items will hopefully be used in future years
**Printing costs may vary and may be something your library can absorb in its normal operating budget. We printed ours in-house, so I did not really need to budget for this, but you might!

Staff Time (approximate):
Purchasing supplies and processing kits (creating labels, making catalog record) = 4 hours*
Drafting invitation letter, collecting contact information, and sending out info to teachers = 2 hours
Checking out and delivering kits, creating teacher library cards, communicating with participating teachers, keeping track of kits = approximately 2 hours/week (mostly in small chunks, may vary week by week) for 11 weeks = 22 hours**Total staff time: 30 hours
Over a period of about 12 weeks, so averaging about 2.5 staff hours/week
* Much of this can be reused in future years. We will still have to process new kits, but I won't have to design new labels, etc.
** You may or may not need to do all these tasks yourself at your library. Next year I will probably let other staff members handle a lot of this since it fits in with our School Collection program that we already run. I just didn't want to load up their plates with my project before I knew if it would be successful.

What I've Been Reading

Our leadership team at the library is reading this book for a team book discussion early in the new year. Cy Wakeman has a lot of insightful and relevant things to say about leaders helping their employees deal with realities (instead of...

The other day I was browsing Netflix, wondering what to watch and thought I just might watch Cosmos over again. Listening to this audiobook was a good substitute. Tyson does what he sets out to do here: boils down his massive, technical ...

This thriller set in Southern Indiana and written by actress Krysten Ritter definitely kept me at the edge of my seat. Something's wrong in Abby Williams's hometown of Barrens, Indiana. Her ecological legal team has been brought in to in...

Grace Hopper made amazing contributions to the field of computer science that helped develop computers as we use them today. This would make a super family read, making the subject accessible to young children, if parents are interested ...